Who knows
if tomorrow
will sing a happy tune
and dance like there is no tomorrow
will swat invisible flies irritably
pounce on every innocuous earthworm
twiddle its thumbs idly
or flounce about busily
sit meekly with a finger on its lips
or plan devilish mischief
will spill and stain the day
or gather rainbow colours to adorn the day
will clatter in and out noisily
or curl up and snooze prettily
will snarl
or smile sweetly
will gather thorns
or rosebuds
will fancy an elegy
or a eulogy
will growl a fanged ‘hello’
or gift a honeyed ‘hello’
will stonify
or melt a heart
will wear a disfiguring frown
or a beatific smile
will cold-shoulder my dreams
or bless them
will bring charred images
or trick out the day with fresh ones
Whatever it does,
I must remember,
a lot depends on
how I prepare for,
and receive,
each tomorrow
today.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
बंद किवाड़
अगर इतना भी पूछना
गुनाह हो जाये,
'तुम कैसे हो
या तुम कैसी हो?'
तो शब्दों का सहारा
लेना छोड़ दो
उसके दिल पर दस्तक करो
प्रेम से
देखना दिल के बंद किवाड़
खुल जायेंगे
जल्दी नहीं
तो कुछ देर से
काश यह विश्वास हमारा होता
काश इस उम्मीद का सहारा होता
गुनाह हो जाये,
'तुम कैसे हो
या तुम कैसी हो?'
तो शब्दों का सहारा
लेना छोड़ दो
उसके दिल पर दस्तक करो
प्रेम से
देखना दिल के बंद किवाड़
खुल जायेंगे
जल्दी नहीं
तो कुछ देर से
काश यह विश्वास हमारा होता
काश इस उम्मीद का सहारा होता
Sunday, July 5, 2009
'Today'
Today
my heart wears blinders
my head a cage-like headgear
my intuition wears 'suspicious' chains
and the doors of perception
are barred -
tarred?
my heart wears blinders
my head a cage-like headgear
my intuition wears 'suspicious' chains
and the doors of perception
are barred -
tarred?
'come, look for me'
When the day darkens
to a grey-blue hue
and the night smiles
to see her pale imitation,
come, look for me.
When the clouds conference
in fused hordes,
and I hold up my palms
skywards
for a sprinkling of grace,
come, look for me.
to a grey-blue hue
and the night smiles
to see her pale imitation,
come, look for me.
When the clouds conference
in fused hordes,
and I hold up my palms
skywards
for a sprinkling of grace,
come, look for me.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Chikmagalur - trees - a few images
May 9, 2009
A resort in Chikmagalur – (notes from a person who wishes she knew trees and flowers better.)
It is a wet morning after four days of bright sunshine and warm days. Drizzle, drizzle, drizzle for about two hours. After a late and lazy breakfast, I take a walk on my own, leaving my sister-in-law and friend behind in the swimming pool. They are like kids delighted to just be in the water. I feel the need to be on my own, with trees and plants as my only companions and partners in solitude.
It is a quarter past eleven and the rain has stopped. The sun is out. Mild its feel. As I walk the path away from our room, I recall what I had written about trees a few years ago and know that I feel the same even now:
I want to feel the height of each tree, vicariously experience its shade; feel each branch, its stretch, its curve, its reach; I want to feel the peculiar nature of its wood, its strength, its inner resistance to nature's changing moods and vagaries. I want to outline the shape of each leaf, run my fingers along its surface and experience its texture. I want to know the different kinds of leaves - thin and papery; thick, smooth and glossy; young and tender; tough and coarse; long and slender; large and wide; like needles but silky soft; velvety; furry; stiff; pliable as fine muslin; satiny; sandpapery; deep-veined; fine-veined; with serrated edges; with curling edges….
The air is refreshing, cool. And the earth is wet wet wet. It is thickly covered with pale grayish brown soggy banyan leaves, twigs, broken branches. In some places the chocolate brown earth flaunts its rich fertile hue.
I hear several birds I do not see. My eyes strain to look through the plants, peer into the foliage of the trees but these feathered creatures remain tantalizingly concealed.
The path I take is lined with banyan trees, hoary guardians of perennial wisdom and profound mysteries. Their shade is deep and widespread. The coffee plants grow under them. The younger leaves of the plant are glossy green with curvy edges. Smooth and pliable. When the leaves hang down from the branches of the coffee plants, they look like so many open palms lowered in an offering. Or, is it the bhumisparsha mudra? On one plant I see a new leaf at the edge of a stem. Upright and eager, it takes in the light and fresh air. My eyes linger on the tiny coffee beans - closely clustered green beads or a secret clique sitting bunched together to formulate strategies. A close-knit community – a rarity! Whatever it may be, I gladly take in their fresh green colour, their small round firmness and rejoice in nature’s pleasing variety.
The third row is formed by the silver oaks – tall and robust with the pepper creeper moving valiantly up their trunks. The paan-shaped leaves are a dull bottle green – firm, rather stiff. I trace their prominent longitudinal veins with my finger and marvel at the fine network of smaller veins.
I see a banyan tree so huge that its trunk looks like several elephants’ legs fused together. Then there are two trees growing from the same base, very unlike each other and going their separate ways. The healthier one has leaves which are a bigger version of the tamarind leaves and white flowers with fine thread-like petals. The second one’s trunk is scooped out as if eaten away by some inner rot or disease. A part of it is just a sad shell and yet it has the will to survive, with its two feet planted firmly on the earth. I salute it.
I see two inseparable trees – embracing. Or, if you, my reader, like a less pleasing description – an unflattering one – a tree with a greenish white trunk forces itself onto the other one with the brownish black trunk, which is coarse and scaly. It clamps its heavy form onto it. Long lasting happy union or an unalterable undesirable close connection – reader, choose whatever suits your passing fancy or deeper proclivity. The tree with the paler smoother trunk has sprightly green leaves that taper to a fine point. The darker one has ovate leaves with a rounded front; the leaves are duller, thicker than the ones of its fairer companion or adversary.
Walking further my gaze rests on a robust jackfruit tree. On the earth squats an over-sized jackfruit – a weary slouchy thing. A huge unseemly thing, unable to manage its own weight.
Retracing my steps part of the way, I turn left into an uneven side path where the touch me nots creep undisturbed on the ground. For the first time in my life, I know what a touch me not or chui-mui looks like and really experience the shyness of this sensitive plant. My finger gently touches the tiny fern-like leaves with purplish edges and they fold up, shrinking from my intrusive touch. The touch me not has been touched by the rain and it accepts this graciously.
A pleasant surprise awaits me further down the path. There are clusters and clusters of the tummichettu, or tumbe guda (in Kannada, or Leucas aspera), one of the plants dear to Ganesha. With its grass-blade-like leaves and tiny white flowers with a jutting out petal-tongue, it is a beautiful miniature plant. I am thrilled as I have never seen so many of them. In fact, I began to know of it only after our return to India nearly three years back. And last Ganesh Chaturthi, my leafy vegetables' vendor had generously handed me a small bunch for the puja.
I look at the young Halvan and orange trees that shield the coffee plants and move on.
As I walk back to our room, I recall the chopped off trees - their lifeless forms, stripped off branches and leaves. I saw these on our way to Sravanabelagola from Bangalore. The road was being widened in several places, hence the trees that were in the way of this 'impressive' and 'public-serving' project had to be cut. These long-standing glorious forms now looked like hapless mammoths. Like defeated Titans they cut a sorry figure. Here, I was glad to be surrounded by living breathing ones.
A resort in Chikmagalur – (notes from a person who wishes she knew trees and flowers better.)
It is a wet morning after four days of bright sunshine and warm days. Drizzle, drizzle, drizzle for about two hours. After a late and lazy breakfast, I take a walk on my own, leaving my sister-in-law and friend behind in the swimming pool. They are like kids delighted to just be in the water. I feel the need to be on my own, with trees and plants as my only companions and partners in solitude.
It is a quarter past eleven and the rain has stopped. The sun is out. Mild its feel. As I walk the path away from our room, I recall what I had written about trees a few years ago and know that I feel the same even now:
I want to feel the height of each tree, vicariously experience its shade; feel each branch, its stretch, its curve, its reach; I want to feel the peculiar nature of its wood, its strength, its inner resistance to nature's changing moods and vagaries. I want to outline the shape of each leaf, run my fingers along its surface and experience its texture. I want to know the different kinds of leaves - thin and papery; thick, smooth and glossy; young and tender; tough and coarse; long and slender; large and wide; like needles but silky soft; velvety; furry; stiff; pliable as fine muslin; satiny; sandpapery; deep-veined; fine-veined; with serrated edges; with curling edges….
The air is refreshing, cool. And the earth is wet wet wet. It is thickly covered with pale grayish brown soggy banyan leaves, twigs, broken branches. In some places the chocolate brown earth flaunts its rich fertile hue.
I hear several birds I do not see. My eyes strain to look through the plants, peer into the foliage of the trees but these feathered creatures remain tantalizingly concealed.
The path I take is lined with banyan trees, hoary guardians of perennial wisdom and profound mysteries. Their shade is deep and widespread. The coffee plants grow under them. The younger leaves of the plant are glossy green with curvy edges. Smooth and pliable. When the leaves hang down from the branches of the coffee plants, they look like so many open palms lowered in an offering. Or, is it the bhumisparsha mudra? On one plant I see a new leaf at the edge of a stem. Upright and eager, it takes in the light and fresh air. My eyes linger on the tiny coffee beans - closely clustered green beads or a secret clique sitting bunched together to formulate strategies. A close-knit community – a rarity! Whatever it may be, I gladly take in their fresh green colour, their small round firmness and rejoice in nature’s pleasing variety.
The third row is formed by the silver oaks – tall and robust with the pepper creeper moving valiantly up their trunks. The paan-shaped leaves are a dull bottle green – firm, rather stiff. I trace their prominent longitudinal veins with my finger and marvel at the fine network of smaller veins.
I see a banyan tree so huge that its trunk looks like several elephants’ legs fused together. Then there are two trees growing from the same base, very unlike each other and going their separate ways. The healthier one has leaves which are a bigger version of the tamarind leaves and white flowers with fine thread-like petals. The second one’s trunk is scooped out as if eaten away by some inner rot or disease. A part of it is just a sad shell and yet it has the will to survive, with its two feet planted firmly on the earth. I salute it.
I see two inseparable trees – embracing. Or, if you, my reader, like a less pleasing description – an unflattering one – a tree with a greenish white trunk forces itself onto the other one with the brownish black trunk, which is coarse and scaly. It clamps its heavy form onto it. Long lasting happy union or an unalterable undesirable close connection – reader, choose whatever suits your passing fancy or deeper proclivity. The tree with the paler smoother trunk has sprightly green leaves that taper to a fine point. The darker one has ovate leaves with a rounded front; the leaves are duller, thicker than the ones of its fairer companion or adversary.
Walking further my gaze rests on a robust jackfruit tree. On the earth squats an over-sized jackfruit – a weary slouchy thing. A huge unseemly thing, unable to manage its own weight.
Retracing my steps part of the way, I turn left into an uneven side path where the touch me nots creep undisturbed on the ground. For the first time in my life, I know what a touch me not or chui-mui looks like and really experience the shyness of this sensitive plant. My finger gently touches the tiny fern-like leaves with purplish edges and they fold up, shrinking from my intrusive touch. The touch me not has been touched by the rain and it accepts this graciously.
A pleasant surprise awaits me further down the path. There are clusters and clusters of the tummichettu, or tumbe guda (in Kannada, or Leucas aspera), one of the plants dear to Ganesha. With its grass-blade-like leaves and tiny white flowers with a jutting out petal-tongue, it is a beautiful miniature plant. I am thrilled as I have never seen so many of them. In fact, I began to know of it only after our return to India nearly three years back. And last Ganesh Chaturthi, my leafy vegetables' vendor had generously handed me a small bunch for the puja.
I look at the young Halvan and orange trees that shield the coffee plants and move on.
As I walk back to our room, I recall the chopped off trees - their lifeless forms, stripped off branches and leaves. I saw these on our way to Sravanabelagola from Bangalore. The road was being widened in several places, hence the trees that were in the way of this 'impressive' and 'public-serving' project had to be cut. These long-standing glorious forms now looked like hapless mammoths. Like defeated Titans they cut a sorry figure. Here, I was glad to be surrounded by living breathing ones.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
नज़र आता नहीं
नज़र आता नहीं
पथरीली दीवारों से घिरा
बगीचा नज़र आता नहीं
इस पागल शोर के बीच
संगीत सुनाई देता नहीं
पेड
आम
कोयल
कूक
केवल शब्द
इनका अनुभव
संभव होता
नज़र आता नहीं
असीम आकाश
घने बादल
बरसात
पहली फुहार
मट्टी
महक
भीनी भीनी
राग मेघ
इनका अनुभव
सामने होते हुए भी
दिल को बहलाता
नज़र आता नहीं
पथरीली दीवारों से घिरा
बगीचा नज़र आता नहीं
इस पागल शोर के बीच
संगीत सुनाई देता नहीं
पेड
आम
कोयल
कूक
केवल शब्द
इनका अनुभव
संभव होता
नज़र आता नहीं
असीम आकाश
घने बादल
बरसात
पहली फुहार
मट्टी
महक
भीनी भीनी
राग मेघ
इनका अनुभव
सामने होते हुए भी
दिल को बहलाता
नज़र आता नहीं
'Retrieved Images'
‘Retrieved Images’
A narrow winding staircase
going down to a circular room -
domed ceiling,
so many doors
glass, opaque black.
What lies beyond them?
Doors open magically,
one by one.
Each offers a different view:
sandy desert – endless expanse
stony desert – pebble-studded,
others speckled grey
with hurtful edges,
rolling plains – a delightful green,
blue mountain ranges –
rugged and aloof,
and then the sea –
a dark brooding grey.
In the distance
an island of sharp jagged rocks
with perilous faces.
Wakeful spear-like hurts,
these rocks.
This island surmounted
by an abbey –
a forbidding cluster
of Gothic towers,
each vying with the other
to rend the sky.
Inside the abbey there is a figure – a nun – me. She is wearing a grey habit, a black veil and black shoes with straps and a small buckle. She is young. Her name flashes before me – Therese. With a candle in her hand she is walking in the very deep heart, the most reclusive centre of the abbey. Time and again she pauses. Stands still, very still. Her eyes seem to penetrate the stone walls. She listens to the sound of the sea – taut and alert. She listens to the sea that tells a dramatic story of upheavals. The sea roars, bellows out its caged fury. The waves gather force, greater force. They hurl themselves against the rocks, crash, pound the abbey walls, aspire to reach the towers in frenetic foaming urges. Beleaguered by the demonic waves, the monastery frowns darkly, looking more starkly grey and bleaker than ever before.
She listens and listens to the voice of the incensed waves, the voice of the troubled waters of a choppy sea. She reads their intent and remains calm – thoughtful. Shielding the timid flame of the candle with her hand, she moves through one vaulted corridor to the next. A solitary being, she glides past empty meditation cells, chapels, chambers, prayer rooms…. Not for a single moment does she wonder where the other nuns are. A fleeting memory of a Mother Superior, a wise benign woman flashes before her, and she smiles. A comforting hand on her head - hand that senses disquiet, rising doubts and guides with gentle nudges. This memory suffuses her with warmth. And she smiles. Then she turns her head to listen. The churning sea swells and swells. The mad waves bellow and dash against the rocks, against the high walls of the abbey. Waves rise and fall – an unleashed force that thrills in its own power. Magnificent and horrific.
Clenched forms, in dismal rumbling silence, the towers stand upright and solemnly defiant. And then – one by one they submit. The unrelenting waves lop off their proud heads. They fall like cardboard giants.
She hears the infernal crash. Crash after crash after crash. No fear. Just a held-in-breath wait. An intense listening for the inevitable moment. Her lips move in prayer. Her face lights up with awed wonder. The waters invade the abbey – the blinding charge of hundreds of wild horses. They engulf her – a serene praying nun. Now, just a doll, tossed about, swept away by the waters. Buffeted by them, sucked into them.
The storm’s fury spent, the sea is calm – saintly serene. It brings up the body of the nun, cradles it, and deposits it gently on the shore. Not bloated. Unscathed. A blanched dead form – more at peace than ever before.
A young man spots the body from a distance, rushes to the shore. Dark brown hair, dark intelligent eyes, the faint beginnings of a beard. He wears an ochre brown loose garment that reveals his sinewy legs. It has the look and feel of jute fabric and is held in place by a thick cord at the waist. He recognizes the dead nun as someone he used to know. Is stunned. He takes her in his arms, bends over her lifeless form and tears stream down his face. He weeps and weeps. Grieves and grieves over the untimely death of someone he used to know. How is he connected to her (to me), I cannot tell. The nun’s spirit speaks to his soul, “Do not grieve for me. The death of this body is not the real truth, the ultimate reality…. Hence, do not grieve. I am at peace.”
In a flash the young man’s face is replaced by my son’s face. I am startled. Then smile gratefully for this precious connection. For this gift of a renewed knowing.
A narrow winding staircase
going down to a circular room -
domed ceiling,
so many doors
glass, opaque black.
What lies beyond them?
Doors open magically,
one by one.
Each offers a different view:
sandy desert – endless expanse
stony desert – pebble-studded,
others speckled grey
with hurtful edges,
rolling plains – a delightful green,
blue mountain ranges –
rugged and aloof,
and then the sea –
a dark brooding grey.
In the distance
an island of sharp jagged rocks
with perilous faces.
Wakeful spear-like hurts,
these rocks.
This island surmounted
by an abbey –
a forbidding cluster
of Gothic towers,
each vying with the other
to rend the sky.
Inside the abbey there is a figure – a nun – me. She is wearing a grey habit, a black veil and black shoes with straps and a small buckle. She is young. Her name flashes before me – Therese. With a candle in her hand she is walking in the very deep heart, the most reclusive centre of the abbey. Time and again she pauses. Stands still, very still. Her eyes seem to penetrate the stone walls. She listens to the sound of the sea – taut and alert. She listens to the sea that tells a dramatic story of upheavals. The sea roars, bellows out its caged fury. The waves gather force, greater force. They hurl themselves against the rocks, crash, pound the abbey walls, aspire to reach the towers in frenetic foaming urges. Beleaguered by the demonic waves, the monastery frowns darkly, looking more starkly grey and bleaker than ever before.
She listens and listens to the voice of the incensed waves, the voice of the troubled waters of a choppy sea. She reads their intent and remains calm – thoughtful. Shielding the timid flame of the candle with her hand, she moves through one vaulted corridor to the next. A solitary being, she glides past empty meditation cells, chapels, chambers, prayer rooms…. Not for a single moment does she wonder where the other nuns are. A fleeting memory of a Mother Superior, a wise benign woman flashes before her, and she smiles. A comforting hand on her head - hand that senses disquiet, rising doubts and guides with gentle nudges. This memory suffuses her with warmth. And she smiles. Then she turns her head to listen. The churning sea swells and swells. The mad waves bellow and dash against the rocks, against the high walls of the abbey. Waves rise and fall – an unleashed force that thrills in its own power. Magnificent and horrific.
Clenched forms, in dismal rumbling silence, the towers stand upright and solemnly defiant. And then – one by one they submit. The unrelenting waves lop off their proud heads. They fall like cardboard giants.
She hears the infernal crash. Crash after crash after crash. No fear. Just a held-in-breath wait. An intense listening for the inevitable moment. Her lips move in prayer. Her face lights up with awed wonder. The waters invade the abbey – the blinding charge of hundreds of wild horses. They engulf her – a serene praying nun. Now, just a doll, tossed about, swept away by the waters. Buffeted by them, sucked into them.
The storm’s fury spent, the sea is calm – saintly serene. It brings up the body of the nun, cradles it, and deposits it gently on the shore. Not bloated. Unscathed. A blanched dead form – more at peace than ever before.
A young man spots the body from a distance, rushes to the shore. Dark brown hair, dark intelligent eyes, the faint beginnings of a beard. He wears an ochre brown loose garment that reveals his sinewy legs. It has the look and feel of jute fabric and is held in place by a thick cord at the waist. He recognizes the dead nun as someone he used to know. Is stunned. He takes her in his arms, bends over her lifeless form and tears stream down his face. He weeps and weeps. Grieves and grieves over the untimely death of someone he used to know. How is he connected to her (to me), I cannot tell. The nun’s spirit speaks to his soul, “Do not grieve for me. The death of this body is not the real truth, the ultimate reality…. Hence, do not grieve. I am at peace.”
In a flash the young man’s face is replaced by my son’s face. I am startled. Then smile gratefully for this precious connection. For this gift of a renewed knowing.
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